Twenty Years in Europe

One of his Cabinet had spent a summer with us at Obstalden, in Switzerland. His family invited us to a little lunch, where we could talk much about the King; but it had to be in a complimentary way, for these good people saw nothing of what everybody else saw-that is, that he was a very unique personage, and probably going crazy. All the world, though, has been glad that he was sane enough to give it Wagner, for without Otto’s long and splendid patronage, Wagner’s music would still have been “a music of the future.”

One of King Otto’s freaks is his wonderful fairy castle, built high up in the Bavarian Alps. When the snow is deep on the mountains, and the wind blows, he goes sleigh-riding late at night, and quite alone, in his wonderful sleigh. This sleigh is a gorgeous little coupé on runners. Inside, it is all cushions, luxury and shining lights. Outside, it is illuminated too, and when the mountaineers hear the jingling of bells late at midnight, and see the apparition passing, they cross themselves, and say: “God keep King Otto in his right mind.”

We heard Wagner’s operas given by his own trained orchestra, almost nightly. They were so long as to be absolutely fatiguing, and made me wonder if this craze for his music is not in part affectation. Enough is enough of anything. We went to bed nights, tired to death; but “it was the thing” to hear Wagner to the end, so we heard.

I think few things interested me so much in Munich as to stand and look at the river Iser. It was full, and dark, and rapid, and great cakes of broken ice floated past. I thought of that night at Hohenlinden

When dark as Winter was the flow

Of Iser rolling rapidly.

Later, as a souvenir of the visit, we bought a little painting by Wex, representing a pretty scene on the upper Iser River.

One of the pleasant incidents of the Munich visit was the meeting with Mark Twain. I copy a few lines from my diary:

Saw Mark Twain several times, and one night had the pleasure of taking him to the American Artists’ Club. The young men had insisted on my asking him to come and make a speech. I went to his apartments, near my own, and together we walked clear across the city. It must have been miles, but I was glad of it. He talked all the way, not with the humor that has made him famous, but in an earnest, thoughtful, sincere mood. He told me how he did his literary work, when in Munich. “I hire a room,” said he, “away off in some obscure quarter of the town, far away from where we live; where no one, not even Mrs. Clemens, could find me. The people who let the room do not know who I am. I go there mornings, stay all day, and work till evening. When at my book-writing, I never sleep a wink, no matter how many days or weeks the undertaking. It is now two weeks since I have slept one single hour.” I wondered such a life was not killing him.

As we trudged along under the lamp lights of the streets, we had much small talk of the West, of the time when he was young and when he was “roughing it.” I amused him by relating how I kept a copy of his “Roughing It” at the consulate, to lend to travelers who came along with the “hypo” and like afflictions.

Something was said of certain American writers, recently sprung to fame. I mentioned a letter Charles Dickens, just before his death, wrote to Bret Harte. The letter, in fact, only reached Harte after Dickens’ death, and was followed by Harte’s beautiful verses, “Dickens in Camp.”

“Dickens could well afford to write nice letters to Bret Harte,” said he, “for he has no more faithful admirer and student, and he has adopted the Englishman’s style. Why not? He could not find a better model, and even as great a genius as Balzac boasted of his dependence on the style of Victor Hugo. Solomon, when he said there was nothing new, meant also there were no new literary styles under the sun, either.”

My own belief is that Bret Harte’s short California sketches are better than anything Dickens ever wrote.

When we reached the new art room that night, the artists and students were already assembled, and were sitting at a couple of long tables, drinking beer and smoking. An enormous schooner full of beer stood at every plate, and the smoke in the room was almost thick enough to slice up and carry out.

The students all rose as we entered, and gave Mark Twain a little cheer. As he hung his overcoat up in the corner, he took from the pocket an enormous roll of manuscript. The young men saw it, and possibly began to tremble a little. “Don’t be alarmed,” he cried out, holding the mighty roll up to their view. “I don’t intend to read all this.” The place of honor at the center of one of the tables was waiting him, and the largest beer schooner of all stood in front of it. I was amazed to see him empty it almost before he sat down. “Let’s have some beer, gentlemen,” he said laughing, and schooner after schooner came and disappeared.

The paper was “What I Know About the German Language.” It was the first time this now famous bit of humor saw the light. It did not seem to me so very funny in itself, but his way of reading it made it exceedingly droll.

When he had finished, every one had something equally ridiculous to tell of the bulls and blunders of ignorant Teutons writing English. Some had received wonderful letters that bordered on uttermost farce. Mark Twain begged possession of all these fool epistles, and possibly made his paper funnier than before from their contents.

The smoke, and the beer, and the jokes went on till midnight. In fact, these beer drinking Americans could beat a Heidelberg students’ “Kneipe” all to pieces, and Mark Twain did not propose to be left wholly in the rear.

At last, we all shook hands and started homewards. It was a good hour’s walk he and I had before us, but the cool night air was refreshing. For my own part, I was glad to get out of the dense smoke, and have a chance to talk alone with the humorist.

I liked Mark Twain. He is a small, slight man, with big, blue eyes and a great shock of reddish hair. He has a habit of saying “Thank you kindly.” He has youth yet, lots of money and a very pretty wife.

February 23.-On coming back from Munich, wrote a paper about the Iser. Also wrote for the Atlantic Monthly the account of my experiences inside Atlanta.

Last evening we had all the Americans who are in town at our home, celebrating Washington’s birthday. A few Swiss and German friends were also with us-among the Germans the family of Director Witt. These were among our first and truest friends abroad. We have spent whole summers together at Bocken, Wangensbach and elsewhere, and we are god parents to one of the little girls. Numbers of guests made speeches last night. Sure it is, the flag never seems so dear to Americans as when they can touch it with their hands in a foreign land. Kinkel, the poet, and his wife and son also, were present.

April, 1879.-There are a million Northern soldiers still living in the United States who were true to the Union, and yet the United States Senate elects a clerk whose principal recommendation is disloyalty to his country. It seems to me a nation is in danger of collapse that can not tell its friends from its enemies.

General Sherman writes thus of the situation:

“Washington, D. C., March 22, 1879.

“Dear Byers: – I was glad to receive your letter this morning, and have sent it down to Mrs. Sherman, who is always glad to see your letters. And now without waiting, will answer your inquiries. We are still here in Washington at the Ebbitt House, Mrs. Sherman, Elly, Rachel and I. Cumpsey is at Baltimore at school, and Mrs. Sherman goes over quite often to look after him. Minnie lives in St. Louis, and at this minute of time Lizzie is there also on a visit. I took Elly and Lizzie with me South, but on our return, as I was somewhat in a hurry and could not well take St. Louis in my route, Lizzie switched off in West Tennessee and went straight to St. Louis. We hear from her daily. All are well there. I suppose you, in common with others, may have seen reports of the illness and death of General and Mrs. T. W. Sherman, but I suppose you recognized the difference of initials. It was another General Sherman, who was on the Army Retired List, who died last week at Newport, R. I. Politics are now awfully mixed. We have an extra session of Congress in which the Democrats have majorities in both branches, and the Southern members, mostly all Confederate officers, are in the majority of the Democrats, and thus rule all. So at this minute the rebels have conquered us, and we are at their mercy. Who would have thought this in 1865? Our paper announced yesterday the election of a clerk of the Senate, with the recommendation that ‘he had served faithfully on Lee’s staff.’ Little by little it has come about, and we find that it is popular to have belonged to the Confederate Army, and correspondingly suspicious to have served in the Union Army. Popular revolutions are hard to comprehend. For this reason I hold myself ready to surrender when called on, which may be at any day.

“My trip South was pleasant and I am glad I made it. Of course I confined myself to purely social matters. Love to Mrs. Byers and the children.

“Yours truly,W. T. Sherman.”

CHAPTER XX

1879

A TRIP THROUGH THE BLACK FOREST-STEIN ON THE RHINE-A FAMOUS CASTLE-“ALL BLOWN UP”-GOOD ROADS-FOX HUNTING.

June 4, 1879.-Two weeks since, friends invited us to accompany them on an extended drive through the Black Forest. Such a drive, through charming scenery, and with perfect June weather, was a pleasure nobody thought of declining.

We entered the Black Forest at Stein on the Rhine, and staid all night there. The scenery of the fair Rhine, the ancient castles, the picturesque hills, and the little town with its architecture of an age long past, gave us great enjoyment. The still perfect castle of Hohenklingen, far up on the rocks above us, is a thousand years old. This would be a spot for romance and poetry.

Long years ago I was here in Stein, but passing years make no change in the perfectly romantic appearance of the place.

Very shortly we were in the midst of what in earlier times was only a vast forest, dangerous for travelers to enter. Even now, away from the old towns and villages, the clean, white highway winds among forests of pine trees whose resinous odor is delightful to the senses. The woods are full of game, and at rare intervals we see a fox.

Parts of these vast woods are owned by rich landlords who hold them as “game preserves,” and who lease them out to lovers of the hunt in the cities of Switzerland and Germany.

Many a delightful and exciting time have I had with my friends, the Witts or the Schwarzenbachs, hunting foxes and deer in those same Black Forest woods.

Usually we came with our guns on the train, to the hamlet of Singen. The gamekeeper would meet us at the station, and the next morning he had a dozen peasants beating the bush for us, while we stood like sentinels, at obscure hidden pathways in the woods, waiting to fire on the fleeing game. Those who could shoot at all, had good luck always. At noon, servants would bring baskets of lunch, including good wine, from the village to us. A rousing fire was made of brushwood, the slaughtered hares, deer, pheasants and foxes were put in piles to look at, and then a picnic was enjoyed such as only hunters with appetites dream of. There was more chasing again in the afternoon. Often a friend who owned an old-time castle on the hills near by took us home with him, when a night was made of it-such a night as must have made some of his ancestors (whose bones lay under the floor at our feet, in the big hall) wish themselves alive again.

Our friends took us from Stein to Hohentwyl, one of the greatest castle ruins in the world. It must have been an imposing sight in the Middle Ages. It sits like a high and isolated island on the level land in the Duchy of Baden. Yet it belongs to another kingdom (Würtemberg). Once, at the close of a war, the conqueror left it to the conquered, just for sweet honor’s sake, and for the brave fighting of its defenders.

One wonders now how the princes and peasants of these valleys were rich enough to build such stupendous affairs. The peasants are poor here, now. What were they in the Middle Ages, with a baron and his castle sitting on every hill?

This particular castle, however, dating from the ninth century, was built and owned by rich German lords. Once it was the home of the beautiful Duchess Hadwig, the heroine of “Ekkehard,” that most beautiful of German novels.

I must relate a joke. Mrs. C- and my wife had been conducted over the vast ruins one forenoon. In the afternoon, I climbed on to the rocky height where the castle sits. When I rang at the castle door, the guide who came seemed to have spent his last pourboire for whisky. He showed me to the main tower, remarking in bad and muddled Dutch that it was once great, but the “French Army had blown it all up-all up.” He walked ahead of me, constantly smoking and muttering to himself-“Yes-Ja, by Gott! blown up-all blown up.” Each wall or tower or room he conducted me to, was “great,” but he quickly added “blown up.” I wondered where the ladies were, and inquired of my maudlin guide if he had seen two women that afternoon, with dark dresses and white parasols. “Ja,” he answered, “saw them”-paused a moment, took his cob out of his mouth and continued-“all blown up.”

The French invasion of some old century had been too much for him. He had talked of it and the exploded castle until he could think of nothing else, and as he closed the door behind, looking at the little coin I had dropped into his hand, I heard him mutter, “Ja-all blown up.”

June 8.-As we drive through out of the way places, and to unfrequented hamlets in the Black Forest, far away from railroads, we find a simplicity of life that possibly has changed little in centuries.

Living is very cheap. We never pay more than twenty cents for breakfast. The brooks are all full of delicious trout, and at wayside inns they take them right out of the brook for us, and charge but a trifle for all we can eat.

The scene is everywhere entirely different from Switzerland; yet the green hills, the great woods, the white roads, the flash of hundreds of bright waterfalls, the village church towers, with a stork’s nest on the top of every one, are almost as interesting to us as the Alps themselves.

Often when our showy equipage passed some farm, the peasants stopped work and stood stock still, leaning on their hoes and looking at us. Many men doff their caps and the women courtesy, guessing no doubt, from the showy four-horse drag, it was the Kaiser himself passing.

The seclusion of the old, old hamlets in the woods, the quiet everywhere, almost makes us lonesome.

Yesterday we were invited to visit a big farmhouse a little distance from the road. The owner was a rich bauer-“very rich,” his neighbors said. Yet, his big, good-looking daughter in wooden shoes and very short petticoats, was engaged in cleaning out the stables. She came to us with the big stable fork in her hand, and in the most agreeable way showed us about the place. She was all smiles and jokes and good humor. She was “smart” too. I thought of “M’liss” in one of Bret Harte’s stories.

We saw an enormous fire-place in the kitchen, without any chimney. The smoke simply ascended, or tried to ascend, through a pyramid of boards. The room was too much for us. “Don’t the smoke hurt your eyes terribly?” said my wife to the girl’s mother, as she wiped the tears away and tried to get her breath. “Oh! yes,” answered the good woman, “it’s terrible on the eyes, but just splendid for smoking hams.”

At many places along the country roads, we passed children with baskets, gathering the manure up from the highways. This they carry into their father’s fields. But every twig, stick or stone that can deface a white smooth road, is gathered up and taken away. Each farmer, for certain fixed distances along the highway, is a “care taker” of the road, and his little income from his farm is increased by a small allowance from the public treasury.

In the vicinity of Friberg, with its wonderful waterfalls and green mountains, we see as beautiful scenery as the heart could wish.

Little of the Black Forest life or scenery is even guessed at by a traveler on the train. The characteristic things of continental life in general are no longer on the routes of public travel.

CHAPTER XXI

1879

BRET HARTE-LETTERS FROM HIM-VISITS US-STAY AT BOCKEN-CONVERSATIONS-MRS. SENATOR SHERMAN-EVENINGS AT BOCKEN-WE ALL GO TO THE RIGI-HOW WE GOT THE “PRINCE’S” ROOMS-HARTE GOES WITH US TO OBSTALDEN IN THE ALPS-VERY SIMPLE LIFE-A STRANGE FUNERAL-HARTE FINDS HIS STORIES IN A VILLAGE INN-MORE LETTERS-WE VISIT THE MOSELLE RIVER-FINER THAN THE RHINE-A WONDERFUL CASTLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES-ALL FURNISHED AND FRESH AS WHEN NEW-THE FRENCH DID NOT FIND IT WHEN THEY WERE DEMOLISHING GERMAN CASTLES-AN EXQUISITE GOTHIC CHURCH FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD-WONDERFUL ROMAN RUINS AT TREVES-MORE LETTERS FROM BRET HARTE-A HAPPY MAN.

May 30.-One day I was wandering quite alone in the Jura Mountains. I had little with me save my umbrella, my overcoat, and a pocket copy of Bret Harte’s poems. When I rested, here and there, under a tree at the roadside, I read the poems-all of them; but “John Burns of Gettysburg,” “Dickens in Camp,” “The Reveille” and “Her Letter,” I read often, and felt them to be the rarest verses any American had ever written.

His “Heathen Chinee” had given him fame, while these other great things were but little known.

I believe I had never asked a man for an autograph in my life, but I did want Bret Harte’s own name at the foot of “Burns of Gettysburg;” for I had read it with a thrill, and with tears. I sent him the very same little book I had carried around with me.

He returned the copy with these words written on the margin:

“Phrases such as camps may teach,Sabre cuts of Saxon speech.”

He also wrote me. He was now U. S. Consul at Crefeld, near the lower Rhine.

“United States Consulate, Crefeld, May 28, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers: – I have written my name in your book, and return it to you by to-day’s post. I beg you to believe that I have never performed that simple act with more pleasure. I only regret that the quality of the paper on page 91 rather limited the legible expression of my good will, and that I could not show as clearly as I would like my thanks to one who has written so appreciatingly of my hero.

“I might have added ‘fellow soldier’ to the inscription, but I fear that my year’s service against the Indians on the California frontier, when the regular troops were withdrawn to Eastern battlefields, would scarcely justify me in taking that title. But I want you to believe that my knowledge of men and camps enabled me to praise a hero understandingly.

“If you still feel under any obligation to me, you can discharge it very easily. I am anxious to know something about your vicinity, and the prices and quality of accommodations to be found there this summer. My doctor has ordered me to the mountains, for my neuralgia and dyspepsia, and I can procure a leave of absence of three or four weeks. I have thought of going to Switzerland with a member of my family who is studying painting in Düsseldorf, and I should therefore prefer some locality where she can sketch from nature. I want some quiet, pretty place, away from the beaten track of tourists-some little pension, not too expensive. Can you give me some information regarding prices, localities, etc., etc., and how early in the season it would be advisable to come?

“I shall look forward confidently to your telling me something as soon as you can.

“Yours very truly,Bret Harte.”

This letter gratified me, as I now looked forward to the pleasure of having Mr. Harte with us in Switzerland. He wished a quiet place. Where in all the world was there so quiet and so lovely a spot as our own “Bocken,” on the lake, with the green hills about it and its views of snow mountains, and all close to beautiful Zurich. We were to spend our third summer there. So I proposed “Bocken” and also “Obstalden,” a hamlet we often went to in the higher Alps.

He took up with Bocken, however, and wrote:

“June 19, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers: – Let me thank you for your two welcome letters and your book on Switzerland. You could not have sent me a volume more satisfactory to my present needs, nor one that could give me so strong a desire to know more of the author. My good genius evidently joined hands with the State Department in sending you to Switzerland ten years before me.

“Make the best arrangements you can for me at Bocken for about the 7th of July, the exact date you shall know later. You can, if you think it better, keep some hold on Obstalden. Dr. Van K- yields his favorite Rigi, and thinks I can get strong at Bocken or Obstalden; such was the power of your letters on the highest medical wisdom of Düsseldorf.

“Nothing could be kinder than your invitation, but I fear that neither my cousin nor myself can permit you to add to our great obligations this suggestion of coming to you as guests. Let us come to Bocken like any other tourists, with the exception that we know we have already friends there to welcome us. My cousin, Miss C-, desires to thank your wife for her good intentions, and hopes to have the pleasure of sketching with her.

“I sent you yesterday the only book of mine that I could lay my hands on, a little volume in return for ‘Switzerland.’ There is something about mountains in it, but I fear your book is the more reliable and interesting.

“My cousin was greatly pleased with your suggestion of your wife’s sketching and aiding her in pursuit of the picturesque.

“Very truly,Bret Harte.”

Delays set in, and he wrote again.

“July 23, 1879.

“My Dear Byers: – Are you losing your patience and beginning to believe that B. H. is ‘a light that never was on land or sea.’

“For the last week I have been trying to assist somebody, who has come out from the Custom House in N. Y., duly certified to by the State Department, and is ‘wanting to know, you know’ all about ‘market prices and prices current.’ But I think I should have scarcely staid for him, if the weather had not been at its worst, blowing a stiff gale for forty-eight hours at a time, and raining in the intervals.

“My present intention is to leave here Saturday, or Sunday, the 26th, but of course will telegraph you exactly when and how.

“Yours hopefully,Bret Harte.”

At last, he and his cousin, Miss C-, a charming woman, who soon joined my wife in sketching excursions, reached Bocken. Bocken has enough big rooms for old knights of ye olden time to carouse in, but very few bedrooms for real folks to sleep in. So Mr. Harte and I, for a time, occupied a bedroom together in the annex. I was a gainer by the arrangement, for we sometimes lay awake half the night and more, whilst he related to me reminiscences of his early life in California and his literary and other experiences. They would fill a book, but I forbear. This much only I copy from my diary of the time.

August 8, 1879.-Bret Harte and his cousin reached us some days ago. He seems a sick man. He looks nothing like the pictures I had conjured up of him. He is forty-one years old, of medium height, strongly built, legs like an athlete, weighs about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, has fine head, a big nose, clear-cut features, clear good eyes, hair cropped short and perfectly gray, face full and fine; in short a very handsome man, and an exquisite in dress. He is neatness personified, and he seems to have brought a whole tailor’s shop of new clothes with him to this simple place, as he appears in a different suit daily, sometimes semi-daily.

There is little at the pension table that he can eat, for he has dyspepsia. So, as we have our own cook and kitchen, we have of late invited him and his cousin to dine with us. At noon, our table is set under the chestnut trees out on the terrace overlooking the blue lake. He can eat here. It is a wonderful spot to dine at with such a view before us.

We have our breakfast in the corner room of the chateau, where the famous tile stove stands, with its pictures of Swiss history. The walls of the room have massive panels of old oak, and around them are low seats that open like chest lids. From the big, leaded windows of the room the view is as fine as on the terrace. Joining this corner is an immense banquet room-the knights’ hall of the olden times.